‘But he can’t write, Jack. He has lost his talent.’
‘That’s all bosh, Amy. If a fellow has once got into the swing of it he can keep it up if he likes. He might write his two novels a year easily enough, just like twenty other men and women. Look here, I could do it myself if I weren’t too lazy. And that’s what’s the matter with Reardon. He doesn’t care to work.’
‘I have thought that myself;’ observed Mrs Yule. ‘It really is too ridiculous to say that he couldn’t write some kind of novels if he chose. Look at Miss Blunt’s last book; why, anybody could have written that. I’m sure there isn’t a thing in it I couldn’t have imagined myself.’
‘Well, all I want to know is, what’s Amy going to do if things don’t alter?’
‘She shall never want a home as long as I have one to share with her.’
John’s natural procedure, when beset by difficulties, was to find fault with everyone all round, himself maintaining a position of irresponsibility.
‘It’s all very well, mother, but when a girl gets married she takes her husband, I have always understood, for better or worse, just as a man takes his wife. To tell the truth, it seems to me Amy has put herself in the wrong. It’s deuced unpleasant to go and live in back streets, and to go without dinner now and then, but girls mustn’t marry if they’re afraid to face these things.’
‘Don’t talk so monstrously, John!’ exclaimed his mother. ‘How could Amy possibly foresee such things? The case is quite an extraordinary one.’
‘Not so uncommon, I assure you. Some one was telling me the other day of a married lady—well educated and blameless—who goes to work at a shop somewhere or other because her husband can’t support her.’
‘And you wish to see Amy working in a shop?’